It caused them to panic to the point where they not only stopped printing good removal but actively downgraded how good removal can be in standard. This made creatures disproportionately powerful because they haven't really gotten weaker at the same rate....

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"Let strength be granted so the world might be mended. So the world might be mended."

I wonder if they have the play/draw win statistics for Standard. From my (completely unreliable and undocumented) experiences, it seems like I win ~75% on the play and ~25% on the draw, which is even worse than getting the blue coin in Gwent.

Turns out quick constructed is a lot more fun than free play! It's true that in quick constructed some of my opponents play what looks like very good draft decks (I ran into cards like Blink of an Eye with kicker) which are of course still a notch below the best constructed decks, but at least I am no longer playing R/B mirrors all the time. The play/draw dynamic can still be game-deciding: being able to stick a threat against control before counterspells come online is huge, as is being able to Chainwhirler Llanowar Elves off the board before all the big green fatties come down. But the really miserable games have gotten a lot rarer.

Also, Magic is hard. My last quick constructed run went 5-3, and along the way I did things like:

1) Tap red mana to "bring back Scrapheap Scrounger", which also forced me to cast a premature Lightning Strike since there's no undo button (is there?).2) Miss lethal. Opponent had Karn and Teferi in play for multiple turns, and had just used River's Rebuke two turns ago. I knew the last two cards in his hand were both Islands (from Karn). With opponent at 12, I could've Chandra +'ed, dealt 2, then swung with everything for 13 damage. Instead I Chandra +'ed, saw Glint-Sleeve Siphoner, happily cast it, and then attacked and killed both planeswalkers before realizing I had lethal. Such is the consequence of 20+ turn games with the last few turns being fought over planeswalkers instead of life totals ...3) Go into combat thinking I will "attack first" before casting Chandra, and then find out of course I can't attack because my opponent's Greenbelt Rampager is bigger than my Scrapheap Scrounger. The missed 3 damage later lost me the game, too.4) Draw 9 cards with two Bomat Couriers with a Canyon Slough cycling trigger on the stack. I needed to discard afterwards, and seeing that I had more than enough action I thought I'd need untapped lands. My graveyard was also stacked, and I had drawn some Scrapheap Scroungers. So I kept four spells, 3 untapped lands, and discarded Canyon Slough + one Scrounger. Of course playing against a control deck I ran out of spells within three turns. Looking at the Swamp in my hand wishing it was Canyon Slough was depressing.

In Gwent, I can play on autopilot almost to GM. In Magic, playing on autopilot gets me killed, and even not playing on autopilot leaves me making mistake after mistake. Wow.

Naya vs opp Esper control. I happily ride my turn3 Chandra for the win and decided that I want to end the game quickly, so instead digging for more cards I just ultimated her and then a wild Disallow appeared. WHAT THE F**K? I didn’t know that the ultimate can be countered :-/

I can happily say that has never happened to me because each time I get close to ultimat-ing Chandra, I think about what could possibly win the game for my opponent, and if the only savior is Disallow (it counters any activated ability, including planeswalker abilities & vehicle crew) I go to 8 loyalty before attempting the ultimate.

I attack with my Scrapheap Scrounger + Thopter token into my opponent's board of Chandra, Heart of Kiran, Pia Nalaar and Thopter token. The idea is, if my opponent blocks the Scrounger with Heart of Kiran, I was holding Chainwhirler to mop it all up. My opponent crews Heart of Kiran with Chandra loyalty, but then thinks better of blocking and just trades of Pia and the Thopter tokens. After the attack my play for the turn is Chandra, which I tick up to do two to opponent. Hands up if you saw what the mistake was.

I end up losing the game to the Heart of Kiran, too. This game is so hard.

I attack with my Scrapheap Scrounger + Thopter token into my opponent's board of Chandra, Heart of Kiran, Pia Nalaar and Thopter token. The idea is, if my opponent blocks the Scrounger with Heart of Kiran, I was holding Chainwhirler to mop it all up. My opponent crews Heart of Kiran with Chandra loyalty, but then thinks better of blocking and just trades of Pia and the Thopter tokens. After the attack my play for the turn is Chandra, which I tick up to do two to opponent. Hands up if you saw what the mistake was.

I end up losing the game to the Heart of Kiran, too. This game is so hard.

I maintain a 70%-ish win rate, but I'm still toiling at Silver, Rank 2. Where are you guys at?

I bounce from diamond to silver to gold to silver to..., almost at random sometimes, but mostly down to what format I'm playing. Since it penalises you for losing to lower ranked people, and gives almost no reward for beating them, formats where you face a lot of low ranked players with either good decks (quick constructed/comp constructed) or a more rng based format (singleton) then you need a stupidly insane win rate just to stand still. Last singletion league session I went 6-3 7-1 and lost rank. And then you get times were rng hates you and you scrub out.

The ranking system seems pretty broken to me, but maybe it's just that there's a lot of new players now so there's hardly any equal rank matches to gain rank from. If ranking ever becomes important they'll really need to make it separate for formats like singleton.

Nice! That should be fun. Been running RG stompy with insult recently, but I so rarely get fog opponents that I think I'll drop it. Has been fun dropping Unsealing into Ghalta, but it's not as good as normal stompy I think.

Not sure if i want to try out UG stompy next or do turbofog. See so few fog players that it might be worth a shot. Would need 4 mythics for fog and I think none for ug stompy, so that'll probably be a factor!

I am in gold 2 I believe, but from what I can tell it does not matter. I play Esper Control or UW Control I invariably get paired against another control deck of some sort or I get mana hosed with 26 lands in the deck. I play Paradox Combo I rarely face control but face creature decks. Very weird.

About the matchup variance, a part of me strongly suspects that it's due to Wizards' abnormal matchmaking system. They're already taking into account the cards in your deck, which must be why I play so many B/R mirrors in free play and they are much rarer in quick constructed. The amount of rank you gain or lose depends in part on your deck, too. It's not inconceivable to me that Wizards is also matching control decks with control decks for god knows what reason. They might even be manipulating draws. I've played against the lifegain cats deck in quick constructed ~5 times now, and in spite of four Goblin Chainwhirlers in my deck, I don't think I've ever drawn one in that matchup.

On rank: I'm silver 2. Was gold 1 at some point, but then I improved my deck, lost a few games, and dropped. Wizard weird matchmaking ftw!!

EDIT: On topic, I can easily imagine this conversation.

"I lost my last round ""Oh, why?""Opponent had turn 1 Llanowar Elves on the play.""I see."

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